Weeds

I've been doing a lot of gardening lately.

It's not unusual. The garden was one of the reasons we bought this house. Gardens require care and nurturing. Part of that care is pulling up weeds.

Pulling up weeds can be a therapeutic exercise. When you've had a lousy day (or week), it gets your mind off your troubles. If you're really imaginative, you can think about that person who is rubbing you the wrong way and well, I don't have to tell you.

If you've already concluded that I've been pulling up my share of weeds lately, you're right. It got me to thinking about life.

I recently had the opportunity to take a break from my adventures in gardening to get together with approximately ten other women in our synagogue. It was called "Tea and Tefillah," a word that I think means fellowship. A little bagel, a little schmooze, a little prayer and then you're on your merry way, ready to face the world.

Only it was hardly like that.

Sometimes, we pre-judge people. Admit it. I do. I'm always walking into places, thinking how other people are prettier or envying the fact that their hair doesn't curl up when it's humid outside. I can tell you  that when I walked into my friend Madeline's house, I only knew two people.

And then I got scared.

Back to my garden for a second.

In the last four weeks, the only work I've done in my garden is pulling weeds. When we moved in, I looked over the garden. The previous owner didn't bother with taking care of it this spring. She was selling the house and probably thought why bother. If I was in her shoes, I might have done the same thing (though I wouldn't have. I value people's opinion too high sometimes, but that's another blog). So what awaited me were weeds of various shapes and sizes. Most of them were small, easy to remove. However; there was one that stuck out. A tall, prickly pear that was as tall as I was (I'm about 5'10) with purple flowers all over it. It looked pretty, sitting amongst the Queen Anne's lace and the delicate white daisies I loved.

But as pretty as it was, it had to come out, root and all.

I was thinking about all of this as I was sitting with these women, listening to their stories, thinking about how much time we truly waste judging each other. Or, better yet, trying to hide all our imperfections. We may look like we have it made, but get a little bit closer and oops, well, our secret is out.

Any gardener, whether new or experienced, will tell you with every assurance that you need to get the weed out by the root. If you don't, it will come back with a vengeance.

It's like that with the different issues we deal with in our lives. There's the offense that we thought we forgave years ago or the anger that we have toward someone close to us. Almost everyone knows someone close to them that is dealing with addiction. There are emotional attachments and husbands that don't seem to understand or love us the way we want to be loved and cherished. There are parents that deal with children that have special needs. We all think that we have nothing in common.

But we do.

We all have something. We can choose to ignore it and go through life angry, bitter and resentful. Or we can be honest with ourselves and deal with it. It sometimes comes with pain and tears and anger, but when it's done, we're better for it.

It's what, as some wise person once said, makes us stronger.